Re: Taking a step back for a moment........

[Steve Theodorou <stheo linuxgruven com>]

Ryan,
I think there are a few others with the same sentiment as far as the project's 
sites' navigation. We should make this simple while at the same time putting the 
most important information up front. I think all good web sites have a way of using 
their front page as a springboard to the rest of the site. We should keep the sites 
Home pages fresh with direct links to Gnome press releases, application updates, & 
definitely having a good links to how the Gnome community is involved. This will 
really help anyone coming to the sites feel part of the movement.

I'm excited about the project. We just need to get a bit more focused on the 
brainstorming before we going head first into the planning stage. 

Steve

>1. Navigation 
>we don't need to plan out elaborate schemas for navigation. Just a 
>simple one that works. I think that we have basically all agreed that 
>we should organize navigation by task. This makes sense, as this is how 
>people want to use websites. I agree with Shawn Admunsun that we want 
>to make the names short and easily scannable. I also think that it 
>should be text-based. If we want to get fancy, we can do a javascript 
>tree expansion type thing so someone can (if they have a browser that 
>supports it) get to the page they want right away. This wouldn't stop 
>normal users from getting there in a normal fashion though. 

>2. Software Map 
>I think that it would be very nice to have a software map that listed 
>gtk apps, gnome apps, and components. It should be broken down by 
>category of software, and each type of app (gtk, gnome, component) 
>should be clearly labelled as such (with an icon perhaps). There should 
>be an option to filter by type of app as well, so if someone just wants 
>to see components, they can select "show only components" or something 
>similar. 

>3. Maintenence 
>We need to remember that everything that we add to the site, we are 
>going to have to maintain. That means that multiple news sections, or 
>anything that requires fresh content will have to be "owned" by someone 
>to keep up maintenence. I've seen a lot of projects fall by the wayside 
>for this very reason. 

>4. Stress Involvement 
>We should try and gear the site towards pushing the GNOME platform. To 
>do that well, we need to offer ways for people to get involved. I 
>suggest that we prominently feature a "Projects of the week" 
>section. Basically, it would be a place for new people to get involved, 
>by doing a fairly straightforward task. There could be a listing of 
>needed projects broken down by different areas: translation, 
>documentation, website, etc. I am sure that each project under the 
>GNOME umbrella has a decent sized list of simple things that the core 
>members just don't have time for. We could post a list, with 
>descriptions and contact info for people to browse. When someone 
>completes a task, we post it on a "new developer of the week" section or 
>something similar. Mozilla does this with their "Friends of the tree" - 
>this seems like a good community-building technique.